Pinterest Can Be Scary

So, Pinterest is all the rage these days, but it turns out that their terms and conditions are a little scary. This article sums it up.

When you pin something, you’re effectively saying that you own the rights and are allowed to pin it. By pinning it, you give Pinterest the right to sell it. And then you assume responsibility for all of Pinterest’s legal fees, and assume all risk associated with legal troubles arising from the use of the item, or from you pinning it.

Here’s the scenario they lay out as being problematic:

You pin a picture of a cat without permission.

Pinterest sells it to ABC Marketing.

ABC Marketing prints it on kitty litter boxes.

Cat picture owner sees kitty litter box in store and calls lawyer.

Lawyer calls Pinterest.

Pinterest calls you.

Bad things happen.

Deane Barker is a Founder and Consulting Analyst at Blend Interactive. Blend, located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, helps institutions and agencies tackle complicated web and content problems.

Looking for a clear, unbiased view of web content management?Web Content Management: Systems, Features, and Best Practices explores the systems, technologies, and platforms within web content management, giving you the knowledge you need to solve the right problems.

Comments

You know who else has those terms of service? Every other site on the Internet.

All services tos imdemnify the company against lawsuits because of your actions. Every tos says you warrant anything you put there you have the legal right to do so. And every site requires you grant them a license to reproduce or sell that content, because without that they can’t put your content on their site.

“When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.”